The present invention relates to a connection unit for connecting and holding a carriage carrying belt in a shape of an endless strip wound between a drive pulley and a driven pulley, and a carriage reciprocated in a main scanning direction in a state of being attached with a recording head, a recording apparatus having the connection unit, and a liquid ejecting apparatus having the connection unit.
Here, a liquid ejecting apparatus is meant to include not only a recording apparatus of an ink jet type recording apparatus, a copier, a facsimile or the like for ejecting ink from a recording head as a liquid ejecting head to a recorded member of a record sheet or the like to record on the recorded member but also an apparatus of ejecting a liquid in correspondence with a specific use in place of ink from a liquid ejecting head in correspondence with the recording head to an ejected member in correspondence with the recorded member to adhere the liquid onto the ejected member. Further, as the liquid ejecting head, other than the above-described recording head, there are exemplified a colorant ejecting head used for fabricating a color filter of a liquid crystal display or the like, an electrode member (conductive paste) ejecting head used for forming an electrode of an organic EL display, a face light emitting display (FED) or the like, a living body organism ejecting head used for fabricating a biochip, and a sample ejecting head for ejecting a sample as a precision pipette or the like.
There is an ink jet printer as an example of an ink jet type recording apparatus or a liquid ejecting apparatus. An ink jet printer includes an ink jet recording head at a carriage thereof and the carriage is driven to reciprocate in a main scanning direction by a carriage motor and a belt for transmitting driving of the carriage motor while being guided by guide means (for example, guide shaft extended in the main scanning direction).
However, when a rapid speed change is brought about in driving the carriage motor, that is, when the carriage is abruptly stopped or abruptly started, a tension of the belt is rapidly changed. Therefore, in accordance with a change in the tension of the belt, vibration is brought about at the belt. Further, vibration of the belt has an influence on moving and positioning the carriage to have an influence also on recording on a recorded member.
Hence, in a related art, as in JP-A-2001-071463, there is a connection unit for preventing vibration in a main scanning direction propagated from a vibration source of a motor or the like by a belt from being propagated to a carriage by providing a projection of an elastic member on a side of the belt and fitting the projection to a connector on a side of the carriage.
However, there are a transverse wave and a longitudinal wave in a physical wave. The transverse wave is a wave in which an advancing direction and a vibrating direction of the wave are orthogonal to each other and vibration of a chord and an electromagnetic wave are examples thereof. The longitudinal wave is a wave in which an advancing direction and a vibrating direction of the wave are in parallel with each other and a sound wave is the wave. It is determined whether a longitudinal wave can be propagated or a transverse wave can be propagated according to the kind of a medium. Both of a longitudinal wave and a transverse wave are present in an elastic wave constituting a medium thereof by an elastic member (sound wave in a broad sense).
Further, in the related connection unit, reliability of absorbing vibration is not sufficient. In order to execute further excellent recording, it is necessary to prevent not only vibration of the longitudinal wave but vibration of the transverse wave from being propagated to the carriage.